Euroclinic shareholders set to open first private clinics

Dutch group Eureko, majority shareholder of the Euroclinic Hospital, will open its first private clinics this year, following 2.5 million euros in investments, after negotiations to sell the hospital, which involved Global Finance and international operators, fell through.

In Greece, Eureko completed the sale of its hospitals to Global Finance in December last year, but the deal did not target Romania.  “Although we were very close to concluding this transaction, after considering our group-level interest, we decided to pursue organic growth in 2009. Eureko is willing to continue to invest on the Romanian healthcare market precisely because there is a tight connection between insurance and healthcare services,” Catalin Popa, CEO of Euroclinic, told ZF in an interview. Euroclinic is part of the Eureko group, which also owns an insurance company currently being rebranded as Eureko, from Interamerican. Eureko has been present on the Romanian market for 14 years, boasting over 350,000 sealed contracts. Negotiations to sell the hospital in Bucharest, which were quite advanced, were held with 12 international operators, and, if the transactions had gone ahead, it would have been the first of its kind in Romania. “As far as international operators are concerned, there is interest for Romania, but a rather cautious one,” added Popa. Foreign players present on the Romanian market include Medicover (with its private clinics and labs division) and Medsana, but neither of these players has so far finalised plans for a private hospital. Euroclinic is in fact the first private hospital to appear on the Romanian market in 2005, being devised as a private wing of Floreasca Hospital. “We are at a time when the hospital is quite active, so we want to expand, and a natural direction would be towards the outpatient segment. If we look at the other models on the market, they started with outpatient services, and then moved to hospitals,” Popa also said. Euroclinic’s investments for this year are estimated at 2.5 million euros, and entail several projects: a clinic in the Drumul Taberei district, moving the outpatient services from the hospital to a clinic in the Floreasca area, expanding the hospital onto the area left vacant, and opening a “more select” facility in the second half of the year.